Hoyle Card Games Help Welcome to Hoyle® Card Games Help. Click on a topic below for help with Hoyle Card Games. Getting Started Overview of Hoyle Card Games Signing In Making a Face in FaceCreator Starting a Game Hoyle Bucks Playing Games Bridge Pitch Canasta Poker Crazy Eights Rummy 500 Cribbage Skat Euchre Solitaire Gin Rummy Space Race Go Fish Spades Hearts Spite & Malice Memory Match Tarot Old Maid Tuxedo Pinochle War Game Options Customizing Hoyle Card Games Changing Player Settings Hoyle Characters Playing Games in Full Screen Mode Setting Game Rules and Options Special Features Managing Games Saving and Restoring Games Quitting a Game Additional Information One Thousand Years of Playing Cards Contact Information References Overview of Hoyle Card Games Hoyle Card Games includes 20 different types of games, from classics like Bridge, Hearts, and Gin Rummy to family games like Crazy Eights and Old Maid--and 50 different Solitaire games! Many of the games can be played with Hoyle characters, and some games can be played with several people in front of your computer. Game Descriptions: Bridge Pitch The classic bidding and trick-taking game. Includes A quick and easy trick taking game; can you w in High, Low , rubber bridge and four-deal bridge. Jack, and Game? Canasta Poker A four-player partner game of making melds and Five Card Draw is the game here. Try to get as large a canastas and fighting over the discard pile. bankroll as you can. Hoyle players are cagey bluffers. Crazy Eights Rummy 500 Follow the color or play an eight. Try the Very Crazy Play sets and sequences to the board and make clever version for a w ild time. use of the discard pile to outscore your opponent. Cribbage Skat The popular tw o-player game, complete w ith board and A three-handed trick taking game popular in Germany, pegs and the Muggins option. w ith a variety of contracts and sophisticated bidding. Euchre Solitaire An aggressive trick-taking game w here you try not to getFifty different variations, including single deck, double deck, "euchred." and fast-paced arcade games. Gin Rummy Space Race Draw ing and discarding are w hat this game is all about. A cutthroat race to be the first team to cross an interstellar Can you "knock" before the other player? finish-line. Go Fish Spades A simple classic. Ask other players for cards, and The fun partnership game w here you need to take the remember w hat they ask for. Enjoy the fishing! tricks you bid, and not too many more! Hearts Spite & Malice A competitive game w here the object is not to catch Competitive solitaire, not for the faint-of-heart. Deal and hearts or the dangerous Queen of Spades. steal in this vicious game of one upmanship. Memory Match Tarot Try to remember w hat's under all the cards. Lots of A trick-taking game popular in France, w ith varying variations for one or tw o players. partnerships and 21 special trump cards. Old Maid Tuxedo Pair up all the animals in the farm, and don't get caught Tuxedo is a tw o-to-four player strategy game, w ith either w ith the pesky troll. quick-play or tournament styles. Pinochle War An intensive trick-taking game. Play one of four different This childhood favorite requires luck and patience and a versions, including partnership and double-deck. fondness for tanks. Signing In When you start Hoyle Card Games, you must first sign in, choosing a name and a picture to represent yourself. You must create at least one player to play the games, and you can create additional players for yourself, your friends, and your family members. One reason for creating multiple players is that some games allow more than one player on the same computer. Another reason is that your high scores and other statistics are tracked based on your player name. The first time you sign in, you are asked to create a new player. After that, you can sign in as an existing player. You can create new players at any time, and you can change your character's face at any time. To create a new player: 1 Click the New button. 2 Type a name for the new player, and click OK. 3 To create your own unique face, click the FaceCreator button. Click here to learn more about using FaceCreator: OR Select FaceCreator to show FaceCreator pictures (ones you have made and a selection of premade faces), or select Non-talking to show non-talking pictures provided for you. Then, select the face you want to use by moving the horizontal scroll bar. 4 Click OK to create the new player. To sign in a player created during a previous session: 1 Click the player's name in the list. If necessary, scroll through the list using the vertical scroll bar. To change the face for this player, see step 3, above. 2 Click OK to start playing games as this player. Notes: You can remove a player from the list of players by selecting the player name and clicking the Delete button. The player and all of their statistics are removed permanently. You can sign in as a different player after you've started Hoyle Card Games. You might do this if someone else wants to play games and you don't want to exit. From the Main Screen, click Sign In on the File menu to sign in as a different player. If you are in a game, click Main Screen on the Go To menu to get to the Main Screen. See Also Changing Player Settings Making a Face in FaceCreator Starting a Game You can start a game from the Main Screen or from the Go To menu. To start a game: From the Main Screen, click the game you want to play, or click the name of the game on the Go To menu. From within a game, click the name of the game on the Go To menu. To get to the Main Screen from within a game, click Main Screen on the Go To menu. To switch from one game to another: Click the Go To menu, and then click the name of the game you want to switch to. If you're in the middle of a game, you are asked if you are sure you want to exit the current game. Note: You can save a game and come back to play it later by using the Save and Restore commands on the File menu. See Also Signing In Customizing the Game Environment Setting Game Rules and Options Special Features Customizing Hoyle Card Games You can change many different types of settings in Hoyle Card Games: the cards used in the games, the background picture displayed in the games, and other environment settings like speed of play, background music, animations, and character speech. All of these settings are changed using options on the Options menu. These settings can be changed from anywhere in Hoyle Card Games and affect all the games. To change the background: 1 Click Background on the Options menu. 2 Click a background style in the list. A preview of the background appears. 3 Click Apply to see the background in the current game. Click OK to accept the background change. To change the card design: 1 Click Cards on the Options menu. 2 Click a card back style in the list. A preview of the card back appears. 3 Click the type of card face. A preview of the card face appears. To play with larger cards that are easier to see, choose Regular, Large or Designer. 4 Click Apply to see the card design in the current game. Click OK to accept the card design change. To change the game environment (sounds, animations, character settings, and more): Click Environment on the Options menu and change settings as described below. Setting Description Character Speech Sets whether Hoyle characters talk while you play. Animations Sets whether certain game animations are on or off. This setting does not affect all games, and only affects animations that a slower computer might have trouble playing. Background Music Sets whether you hear background music while you play the games. Specify which music you want to hear by selecting it in the Background Music list. Adjust the volume of the music using the volume slider. Sound Effects Sets whether you hear sound effects during games, such as dealing cards. Show Intro Movie Plays the introductory movie whenever you start Hoyle Card Games. Game Speed Sets the overall speed of all the games. You might want to slow down the games if they don't perform well on your computer. Move the Game Speed slider to the left (Slow) or right (Fast) to adjust the speed. Character Attitude Sets how talkative and animated Hoyle characters are during the game. Move the Character Attitude slider to the left towards Serious for less attitude or to the right towards Talkative for more attitude. Note: The attitude is set for all Hoyle characters in the game. You cannot set each player's attitude individually. See Also Setting Game Rules and Options Special Features Playing Games in Full Screen Mode You can make Hoyle Card Games fill your entire computer screen so that the games are easier to see. To play in full screen mode: Click Full Screen on the Options menu. The program resizes to fill the screen. To return to a windowed mode: Click Window on the Options menu.